Frontend Engineer — Graph Editor (Contract)

Atomic Machines • Full-time • Emeryville, California, United States • $150.72k - $268.51k / year • 1d ago

Atomic Machines is ushering in a new era of micromanufacturing with its Matter Compiler™ technology platform. This platform enables new classes of micromachines to be designed and built by providing manufacturing processes and a materials library that are inaccessible to semiconductor manufacturing methods. It unlocks MEMS manufacturing not only for device classes that could never be produced by semiconductor methods, but also for entirely new categories. Furthermore, this digital platform is fully programmable in the way 3D printing is digital—but whereas 3D printing produces parts of a single material using a single process, the Matter Compiler™ technology platform is a multi-process, multi-material system: bits and raw materials go in, and complete, functional micromachines come out. The Atomic Machines team has also created an exciting first device—made possible only through the Matter Compiler™ technology platform—that we will be unveiling to the world soon.

Our offices are in Emeryville and Santa Clara, California.

About The Role:

In this role you will help maintain and extend a web-based visual graph editor for manufacturing workflows. Users create and connect nodes representing materials/workpieces/tools and manufacturing steps (processes/inspections), validate the resulting workflow against catalogs and strict data contracts, and export a schema-compliant JSON representation for downstream tooling.

This role blends UI engineering with data integrity work. The editor must stay responsive on large graphs, preserve correctness (IDs, validation, export format), as well as support collaboration workflows through version control integrations.

This is a part-time, hybrid, freelance/contract role. The person will be onsite in our Emeryville office 2-5 days per week. Relocation is not provided. Hours:

1st 60 days: 20-40 hours per week
Ongoing: 10-20 hours (minimum) per week

What You'll Do:

Build and maintain a React + TypeScript UI for a graph editor (node/edge creation, selection, multi-select, drag/drop, property panels).
Implement schema-driven validation and export (JSON Schema / AJV), ensuring stable, backwards-compatible outputs as schemas evolve.
Improve performance and reliability for large graphs (rendering, minimizing re-renders, preventing UI jitter, safe persistence).
Support workflows around identity/ID rules, including ID generation, transformations on copy/paste/import, and "minting/locking" behaviors that freeze certain fields once finalized.
Maintain integrations used in real production workflows:
- GitLab API (branching, committing files, MR workflows)
- Methods API (catalog sync, offline fallback, validation that blocks pushes when API is down)
- Authentication (Okta)
Ship small-to-medium features end-to-end: UI, state changes, validation, tests, and docs.
Triage bugs from real users (manufacturing/process engineers), reproduce quickly, and implement safe fixes.
Add/maintain unit tests (Jest + TS) around tricky logic (ID transformation, export validation, API sync behavior).
Keep the build/lint/test pipeline healthy (Vite, TypeScript, ESLint, Jest) and handle dependency upgrades carefully.
Collaborate asynchronously with a cross-functional team (process, production, AI) through clear PRs, strong commit hygiene, and pragmatic technical decisions.

What You'll Need:

~3+ years building production web apps with React + TypeScript.
Graph/diagram editor experience (ReactFlow, D3, jointjs, etc.).
Experience with complex client-side state and data integrity (persistence, migrations, "single source of truth" patterns).
Comfort working in a codebase where correctness matters (validation, deterministic export formats, backwards compatibility).
Experience integrating with REST APIs and handling offline/error modes gracefully.
Ability to write and maintain tests for non-trivial logic (not just snapshot/UI smoke tests).
Strong debugging skills: performance profiling, event handling, and race-condition style issues in the browser.

Bonus Points For:

Manufacturing background (MES, process planning, CAD/CAM adjacent tooling, "recipes/methods/catalog" concepts).
JSON Schema / AJV experience and comfort with strict data contracts.
GitLab API experience, auth systems (Okta/OIDC), or "internal tool" deployment constraints.